• Introduction
• 1. Factor New Airline Fees into Travel Costs
• 2. Monitor Your Route for Best Fares
• 3. Don’t Hold Out for Last-Minute Deals
• 4. Be Flexible: Avoid Peak Travel Days
• 5. Book a Flight & Hotel Package for Overall Value
• 6. Fly on the Holiday Itself
• 7. Consider Alternate Airports
• 8. Shop Around on Many Sites, Including Airlines’
• 9. Be Prepared to Layover to Cut Costs
• 10. Get Grounded: Look into Trains, Buses & Cars

Be Flexible: Avoid Peak Travel Days

If you have flexibility with your travel days, you're pretty much guaranteed savings. By all means, know – and avoid – peak holiday travel dates, especially the Wednesday before and the Sunday after Thanksgiving, December 23, December 26, December 27, January 2, and January 3. Flights on these dates are priced at a premium, and, along with a handful of others, additionally carry a “Peak Travel Surcharge” of $10 to $20 each way on nearly all major carriers, a newly implemented price bump for 2009. With Christmas falling on a Friday this year, delaying your return trip to the following Tuesday or Wednesday, as opposed to the weekend, can translate to huge savings. Do use fare search engines that feature a “flexible dates” search – like Kayak (www.kayak.com), Travelocity (www.travelocity.com), or Orbitz (www.orbitz.com) – which will allow you to search the cheapest fares available over a range of dates. If you have any remaining vacation days, the holidays are the perfect time to cash them in – the lengthier your trip, the further away you can travel from the holiday itself, when there is the most demand and highest costs for flights. And don’t shy away from those off-peak early morning or red-eye flights, which are typically priced lower, and have the added bonus of boasting fewer delays (especially the crack-of-dawn morning flights), as the airports are less congested with both people and plane traffic.

See United States Travel Guide